It was a Garden still beyond all price,

Even yet it was a place of Paradise;

For where the mighty Ocean could not spare,

There had he, with his own creation,

Sought to repair his work of devastation.

And here were coral bowers,

And grots of madrepores,

And banks of spunge, as soft and fair to eye

As e’er was mossy bed

Whereon the Wood Nymphs lie

With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.

Here, too, were living flowers

Which, like a bud compacted,

Their purple cups contracted,

And now in open blossom spread,

Stretch’d like green anthers many a seeking head.

And arborets of jointed stone were there,

And plants of fibres fine, as silkworm’s thread;

Yea, beautiful as Mermaid’s golden hair

Upon the waves dispread:

Others that, like the broad banana growing,

Rais’d their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue,

Like streamers wide out-flowing.

And whatsoe’er the depths of Ocean hide

From human eyes, Ladurlad there espied,

Trees of the deep, and shrubs and fruits and flowers,

As fair as ours,

Wherewith the Sea-Nymphs love their locks to braid,

When to their father’s hall, at festival

Repairing, they, in emulous array,

Their charms display,

To grace the banquet, and the solemn day.